Application Real-Time Monitoring Service:Monitor a Windows ECS instance with Managed Service for Prometheus

How it works

1. Windows Exporter runs on the ECS instance and exposes system metrics on an HTTP port (default: 9182).

2. The Windows component in ARMS discovers the instance and scrapes metrics at a configured interval.

3. Pre-built dashboards in the ARMS console visualize CPU, memory, disk, and network data.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure that you have:

• An ECS instance running Windows Server, deployed in a virtual private cloud (VPC)

• Administrator access to the Windows instance

• Access to the ARMS console

Step 1: (Optional) Install Windows Exporter

ARMS supports two deployment methods. If you prefer automatic installation, skip this step and go to Step 2. The system installs the exporter for you based on service discovery rules.

To install Windows Exporter manually:

1. Log on to the ECS instance as an administrator.

2. Download the Windows Exporter installation package (windows_exporter-1.22.0-amd64.msi).

3. Install the exporter. Double-click the .msi file, or run the following command: The following table lists the MSI installer parameters you can use for automated or customized installations: For example, to install with a custom port and specific collectors:

   Parameter	Description	Default value
   ENABLED_COLLECTORS	Comma-separated list of metric collectors to enable	cpu, cpu_info, memory, process, tcp, cs, logical_disk, net, os, system, textfile, time
   LISTEN_PORT	Port that the exporter listens on	9182
   LISTEN_ADDR	IP address to bind to	Empty (all local addresses)
   METRICS_PATH	HTTP path at which metrics are served	/metrics
   TEXTFILE_DIRS	Directories containing custom textfile collector files	None
   CONFIG_FILE	Path to a YAML configuration file	None
   Installation directory	--	C:\Program Files (x86)\windows_exporter

      msiexec /i windows_exporter-1.22.0-amd64.msi

      msiexec /i windows_exporter-1.22.0-amd64.msi LISTEN_PORT="9183" ENABLED_COLLECTORS="cpu,memory,logical_disk,net,os,system"

4. Verify that the exporter is running. Open a browser or run the following command, and confirm that Prometheus-format metrics are returned: A successful response looks similar to the following output: You can also open Windows Console (Services) and confirm that the windows_exporter service is in the Running state.

      curl localhost:9182/metrics

      # HELP windows_os_info OperatingSystem.Caption, OperatingSystem.Version
      # TYPE windows_os_info gauge
      windows_os_info{product="Windows Server 2019 Datacenter",version="10.0.17763"} 1
      # HELP windows_cpu_time_total Time that processor spent in different modes (dpc, idle, interrupt, privileged, user)
      # TYPE windows_cpu_time_total counter
      windows_cpu_time_total{core="0,0",mode="dpc"} 4.421875
      ...

5. (Optional) Customize the configuration. Edit the config.yml file to change the port or modify which collectors are enabled. For the full list of configuration options, see the Windows Exporter documentation. After saving your changes, restart the service:

      sc stop windows_exporter && sc start windows_exporter

Step 2: Enable the Windows component

1. Log on to the Application Real-Time Monitoring Service (ARMS) console.

2. In the left-side navigation pane, click Integration Center.

3. Search for Windows and click the component to open it.

   

4. On the Start Integration tab, configure the following parameters and click OK.

   Parameter	Description
   Select the environment type	The environment where Windows is running. Valid value: ECS(VPC).
   WindowsExporter Installation Mode	How to deploy the exporter. Select Automatic Installation to let ARMS install and manage the exporter, or Self Installation if you already installed it in Step 1.
   Host Service Discovery Mode	How ARMS discovers target instances. Options: Unconditional (Select all Windows instances in the current VPC), Stain Label Selection, Tag Label Selection, IP CIDR, or Instance ID.
   Collect TextFile	The absolute path to a directory containing textfile collector files. Environment variables are not supported. Example: /home/app/textfiles.
   Windows-Exporter Service port	The port that Windows Exporter listens on. The default value (9182) is filled in automatically.
   Security Groups Are Automatically Configured	When enabled, ARMS checks the security group of the ECS instance to verify that the exporter port is accessible over the VPC, and automatically adds inbound rules if needed.
   Custom ECS Tag Injection	Tag keys from the ECS instance to inject into scraped metrics as label key-value pairs.
   Metric Scrape interval (unit/second)	How often ARMS scrapes metrics from the exporter. Default: 15 seconds.

   

Step 4: Configure alerting

After dashboards are available, set up alert rules to get notified when metrics cross thresholds such as high CPU usage, low available memory, or disk space running low.

For instructions, see Create an alert rule for a Prometheus instance.

Default metric collectors

The following table lists the metric collectors enabled by default when Windows Exporter is installed through ARMS. Each collector exposes a group of related Prometheus metrics.

To enable additional collectors, edit the config.yml file and restart the service. For the full collector catalog, see the Windows Exporter documentation.